


Master Me

by AbbyDebeaupre



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: 18th Century, BDSM, Canon Divergent AU, Consensual Kink, Dom!Jamie, F/M, Mistress and Servant, Naughty Possibilities, Older Man/Younger Woman, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-04-26 00:26:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14390271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbbyDebeaupre/pseuds/AbbyDebeaupre
Summary: Lady Geneva pushes all her groom’s buttons, Jamie returns the favor. Geneva is not evil, Jamie is not a saint. 18th century naughtiness ensues.This is a Jamie and Geneva story. Claire is gone. Everything is consensual! READ THE TAGS Do not read it if it isn't your thing!





	1. Now Jamie Is The Outlander

**Author's Note:**

> Ok I know! Truly! Do not throw things at me! I started thinking what if it was all completely different? What if Geneva wasn't.... What if-- God forbid, Jamie tried to piece his life back together knowing Claire was truly gone? Would Jamie really have tried to replicate the perfect life he'd had with someone who was Not!Claire? Get married, have some kids? I don't think so. He can't have a nice and tidy life at Helwater and yet here is a passionate man in the prime of his life, living all alone no family, no ties, no community of his own on a British estate with a wayward rebel daughter who is beautiful, hot blooded and seeking something she thinks he can give her. I think he'd be very tempted by the possibilities of tasting the forbidden fruit....

 

As the Lake District settled into the summer of 1756, Jamie’s blazing rage at Lord John Grey and the exile he’d forced upon him started to fade into, if not acceptance, then at least a detente of sorts. The story they put out upon arrival was that Alex MacKenzie was a groom from the Duke of Pardloe’s estate. The former governor of Ardsmuir knew enough to steer clear of Jamie, allowing him time to acclimate before showing his face again.

 

His room above the stables with its pallet of straw and thin blanket, the small trunk to house his meager possessions, if not objectively comfortable, was such a far cry from the austere barren damp of Ardsmuir that he thought himself housed most opulently. Though truth be told, he’d trade the warmth of place for the warmth of companionship in a heartbeat. Luxurious though it might be by comparison, it was also very lonely.

 

He understood solitude, silence, separation but this...to be cast adrift so completely...what was it his wife had said? A stranger in a strange land. He chuckled, a mirthless, hollow sound to his unaccustomed ears. _Aye, well, now I’m the Sassenach_ .” He told her, imagining her there with him. “ _Dinna laugh, you. My God, ye had more courage than I gave ye credit for, mo chridhe._ ” Thinking of her caused him pain equal to the strained and torn muscles that were slowly getting used to the demands of physical labor once more and unrelenting mental anguish that he would never find a way to sooth.  

 

At first, she was in his thoughts constantly, how could it be otherwise? Surrounded by English voices that served as a reminder of her, feet sunk deep into a fertile land budding with new possibilities all around him, she was here in every bright flower unfurling toward the sun or gently swelling pregnant body. Alone at night for the first time in many a year, he would long for her, to feel that same promise of renewal that thrummed within her, of the soft, wet, welcoming heat of her.

 

A normally self-disciplined man, he had resisted the desire to remember her even in the privacy of the wee hours of the night while at Ardsmuir. His chains would have rattled, his men would have known and in the knowing would have come to see him as human after all. They needed a leader not a man like themselves. So he didn’t. Those years of deprivation had taken a toll and like the bright green stalks pushing up through the soil, something deep within his body had awakened. The first weeks at Helwater he’d made up for lost time.

 

He would blow out the candles, close his eyes, remember the sound of her voice, easier now with the rhythms of the language all he heard. Being surrounded by women of every shape and size after years of not seeing any feminine form save perhaps his sister he found it so much easier to picture his wife’s lovely round arse and he'd slowly lower his breeks. There was no rush, he had time and space and privacy to do it properly. He’d feel her fingers closing around his length. The firm, sure stroke of a lover who knew how to touch him and get him panting. He’d feel her cup his balls and gently roll them. He would moan to encourage her, and feel her dive lower around to his backside. His body would move as it wanted with no fear of being caught out. He was quite alone in his corner of the stables. Strong fingers, covered in moistness from her mouth would slide over him, faster and faster until he would fling his head up, arch his back and cry out in deep satisfaction.

Once, often twice or more every night he craved such release. At first, it brought him peace. But the longer he was at Helwater, the more isolated he became. The yearning to be touched by another, to bring pleasure to someone other than himself burned within him and the solitary stroke of his own hand only brought him despair. He’d start to cry even before the orgasm overtook him. Her memory so vividly rekindled by the English around him started to fade once more. Now, as he pictured her smile, it became harder and harder to imagine her touch except at the very peak of his release and when he called her name at that moment it was not in relief but in a plea for her not to leave and a curse as the truth hit him. She'd left him.   

The harder he clung to her, the more he fought to remember the life he had, the more melancholy he became. The sorrow of being Jamie Fraser seeped deeply into his bones. Frustrations followed, making it harder and harder for him to reach any kind of satisfaction- whether in his work at the stables or in the hay field or in his relative freedom to walk for mile after mile unobserved, or whether at night with his hand on his cock. No fragmentary joy could he find. These spoiled attempts to find contentment spawned new, dark feelings. Now came the anger-- something he thought he’d conquered upon settling into Helwater, but realized had only been masked in the struggle to find his footing. Jamie worked hard to contain such emotions. He tried to pick solitary tasks, never made eye contact, spoke even less. There was something about the big Scot at the stables that made the rest of the servants cautious and steer well clear of him. 

Jamie hadn’t noticed how short tempered he’d become until it was almost too late. He nearly backhanded a serving maid who’d come to drop off laundered saddle blankets. She’d tripped, causing a bucket of tar to spill over saddles and tack that had taken him hours of hard work to repair. She darted out of the way of his outstretched hand, which he had, thank the lord, pulled back in time. But doing so caused her to land hard on her hands and knees just in front of him, arse high up in the air, cap flung sideways and curling brown hair spilling over her shoulders and back. He felt the flash of something dark and ugly hit him, he started to shake. He immediately ordered her back to the main house with a menacing snarl. He knew couldn’t have her in his sight for another second. He did the only thing that he could imagine doing then, hitting the closest wooden crossbar over and over and over again until his hands bled, until he had no feeling in his fingers, until his cockstand had evaporated.  

What in God’s name was he becoming? He promised no lies, and that included to himself. So he forced himself to acknowledge the truth, that for a split second he’d been tempted to lift her skirts and take her right there in the open, kneeling on tar covered hay and-- Jamie hit the wood pillar one final time with such force he split the back of his hand wide open. Good. He hoped it would fester. The unholy lust that had overcome him for that half a second disgusted him. He wanted to be anyone but himself in that moment. Never had he wished he had died on Culloden more than now. This life. This one where he was in a state of constant mourning, constant loss, carrying the weight of being Jamie Fraser was not a life worth living.

 

He needed to accept it was over. He hadn’t seen the little maid again but it was clear she had never spoken of the incident in the stables to anyone. As for him, he atoned in his heart, prayed for forgiveness, for mercy. Then he, too, allowed the matter to drop. He could not continue to exist in a world where reminders of his old life to cut him open, left him bleeding over and over again. He needed to forget that time and place, the man he had been, the things he had lost or he would never survive this barren exile where nothing-- not sound or smell, or taste or sight was familiar to him.

 

Over a matter of several weeks, Jamie Fraser shed the skin of his old life. He ruthlessly tamped down any memories he had of his family, his clan, his wife. He tried to stop thinking in Gaelic, never recited Greek verse, nor conjugated Latin verbs nor debated that tenants of French philosophy even in the recesses of his own mind. English and English only inside his head. He never pictured the lush hills of home, the sound of water ruffling over rocks in a burn, the dark blue of a loch, the muted colors of a plaid, the smell of peat fire.

 

His day consisted of only what was in his immediate eye line, only of the tasks set before him for the next hour. That was how he managed to survive at first: one hour at a time, hour after hour until another sun set. Here, no one made any demands of him save to work with the horses. Here, no one knew of his past, except the barest of origin, of the scars on his back and leg, which had mended and the ones in his heart that had not. Gradually, he learned to forget he was ever Jamie Fraser, a gentleman and laird, an officer and traitor, a grief stricken husband with no home, no wife no child to call his own.

He is simply MacKenzie, a groom at Helwater.


	2. Damaged Goods, Geneva's Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have altered the timeline a bit to make Gordon’s death closer in time to when Jamie arrives in Helwater. Gordon was injured at Prestonpans and never recovered.

The Lake District was at its most beautiful this time of year and the unseasonable warmth stretched into late September. An All-Hallown Summer. Still, Geneva reflected as she adjusted her riding cap and grabbed her favorite riding crop, being home failed to sooth her. It had the opposite effect, in fact, for she had returned from her family’s sojourn to Italy in an altered state, to put it politely, and a marriage had to be hastily arranged.

 

 _Luca Baptista de Savoie_ the forbidden name whispered itself in her head as did an image of his dark, brooding form. Luca of the deep, full lips turned up in sardonic grins and the coal black eyes that burned a hole into her chest and made her feel wanton and desirable.  

 

When her father had first announced that he would be taking all of them to Italy to help settle his brother-in-law’s affairs, she and Isobel had been beside themselves with excitement. Neither of them had travelled further than London before. It had been exactly what the family had needed to revitalize their flagging spirits. Her mother had never really recovered from the loss of her son. His death was simply a confirmation of the inevitable though, in reality they’d lost him years before putting him in the ground.

 

Gordon had come home from the Battle of Prestonpans a broken shadow of the gallant, vital young man he’d been when he’d first joined the regiment. His left side had been paralyzed and it was clear that while his body was functional, his mind had reverted to that of a helpless boy. Geneva carried no small amount of guilt over his death for in her heart she knew that most Sundays she’d spent praying for an end to his suffering. He wouldn’t have wanted to live like that. Never. And yet when it had finally happened, a congestion in the lungs that could not be eradicated, she had been taken by surprise. They all had. Grief defied all logic.

 

Her younger sister, Isobel, turned fifteen last year and suddenly decided the things they used to do all time time weren’t “suitable pastimes” for _Young Ladies._ Never a terribly accomplished equestrian, following Gordon’s malaise,  Isobel had tried to fill in the hole of his loss by spending more time with Geneva deigning to do things Geneva liked to do. They used to tear across fields, race each other and jump stone fences. Now, though, Isobel refused even the most sedate of trails. Her sister wouldn’t even join her on reconnaissance missions to eavesdrop at the drawing room door, or sneak off to swim in the lake in nothing but their shifts. She most certainly would never countenance going to the kitchen for a friendly chat with Jeffries, the butler and Cook in the hope of extra bread and jam.  

 

Gordon had been everyone’s favorite. His absence in the family and in the household impacted the whole of the Estate. He had a lovely way of making everyone from the footmen to her father laugh. With Gordon, Helwater had been a lively, friendly place. Not stuffy or reserved. Gordon refused to stand on ceremony. No matter what Mother or Father thought about it privately, they never reprimanded Gordon for it publically. Gordon explained that while it was true everyone had their own place in the household that as their servants dedicated their lives to the betterment of his own, he would treat them accordingly.

 

Jeffries and Cook used to love when Gordon and Geneva would pop below stairs and spend time with them. They’d always welcomed the little lord and lady. Now, with Gordon gone, Geneva’s solo appearances below stairs suddenly drew sharp lectures from Father and censorious stares from Jeffries. Without Gordon’s charm and wit to smooth the way, Geneva’s overtures were rebuffed. Under the influence of Lord Dunsany, with no charming heir in the wings, the household reverted back to the cold formality that had been its natural environment before the force of Gordon’s personality had made the Estate a home.

 

Geneva had been caught at that awkward age between a budding beauty  and marriageable miss and, with her mother incapacitated by her mourning, no one to help guide her. She had no idea how she _ought_ to behave, only that whatever it was she was doing was always wrong. Her father would scold her for her overly friendly manner with the footmen and grooms. He would frown when he saw her pat Jeffries on the arm -- an action she and Gordon had done countless times while younger.  He would inspect every book she took from a library shelf, find fault with her experiments in the hot house.

 

Not understanding why her home was suddenly a hostile environment, nor why the servants, whom she’d been on friendly terms with had suddenly deserted her Geneva lashed out. Each time her Father yelled at her, she screamed at someone else. Every inquiry became an accusation in her ears. Angry all the time now, Geneva took back control the only way she knew by rejecting them before they could do the same and telling herself it didn’t matter that no one liked her anymore.  

 

They should have occupied her with preparing for her debut on the marriage mart. Outfitting a young lady in her first (and hopefully only) season was generally an endeavor worthy of several months’ planning. In flagging spirits himself and lacking a wifely nudge, her father hadn’t had the energy to make such arrangements on his own. Geneva wasn’t old, exactly, but, at 17, was fast approaching the age where husband hunting crossed from the realm of pleasant past-time to become a full time occupation. Yet her mother hadn’t so much as ordered an updated copy of Debrett’s Peerage, let alone made the inquiries necessary to lease a home in Mayfair, find the most exclusive modiste and arrange for entree into more exclusive social circles.

 

Geneva didn’t believe in false modesty. She had striking good looks. She had been fawned over since the cradle. Her dancing masters and tutors could find no fault with her posture or movement, she spoke several languages and was clever enough never to show anyone how clever she could be. She had no doubt that, given a chance, she’d be a smashing success. She had a porcelain skinned, raven haired beauty that would only improve with age.

 

Just prior to embarking to the continent for their Italian adventure, Geneva had begun experimenting with flirtation.  At the small country balls and community assemblies she’d attended, Geneva barely had to keep up her end of any social conversation, any inane comment she made appeared to be of such interest that anything in possession of a penis hung on her every word. It was too bad none of them had anything interesting to say to _her_.  All the boys she knew from nearby estates seemed to be men in their dottage or baby-faced vainglorious idiots.  She wasn’t impressed with the species as a whole. It was all so excruciatingly dull in the country. Last year, she overheard her parents discussing the possibility of sending her with Olivia Pearsall who was to be sponsored by Benedicta Grey but even that task seemed to be beyond both her parents.

 

Between Gordon’s death, Isobel’s desertion and her mother’s noticeable decline, the things that Geneva had loved: riding, spending hours in the massive greenhouse perfecting her flower varieties, visiting other young ladies on neighboring estates, all of it seemed pointless. She’d always had a temper, that was true, but denied anything to distract her, she’d turned into a bit of a hellion.

 

All in all, everyone sensed that the excursion to Italy was just the very thing the family all needed to get them out of their predictable little lives. She yearned for adventure, excitement, a taste of something forbidden.  Luca de Savoie, the Conte de Savoie had, as it turned out, been quite, quite forbidden. Married, a fact that somehow escaped mention, as they kept bumping into one another at one social event after another in the small Piedmont society. The fact none of the servants in their leased home saw fit to tell them was another betrayal. Luca, apparently, was estranged from his wife and spending the summer with his sister’s family licking his wounds until his wife’s temper had sufficiently cooled to bid him to return. Geneva would often wonder later if the Dunsany servants had been told and had deliberately kept quiet and if her shocking fall from grace had been the proper comeuppance they thought she deserved.

 

Whatever the case, no one mentioned his ineligibility. All she knew was the charming Conte was handsome, titled and calling upon her, inviting her to go riding with himself and his sister -- his _married_ sister-- Simona, who, it turned out, sometimes became unaccountably ill after their riding party was out of sight of the city busybodies. She’d turn back, insisting that Luca and Geneva continue on.

 

Oh! the first time that had happened, Geneva thought her heart was going to beat straight out of her chest. He was tall, beautifully dressed, a wonderful equestrian and charming. He made funny jokes in French, then insisted she translate them into Italian so she would learn the language. He’d often bring a picnic and they would sit on a hilltop to catch the breeze and talk of nothing and everything. She never felt fear with him, he’d been a complete gentleman the first several outings.

 

In fact, it had been she who made the first move. A piece of cheese was stuck to his chin. Over the past few weeks, she’d become so comfortable with him that she’d simply reached out and brushed the crumb from his sun-kissed skin. She’d taken off her gloves for the picnic. She distinctly remembered the feel of his beard. The sound he made deep in his throat. How his fingers felt as he reached up and held her hand. The press of those red lips on the backs of her knuckles and the merest hint of his tongue in the groove between middle and ring finger. She almost swooned.

 

He grew bolder after that, and she as well. The summer had been a revelation. He made her body sing, shine, burn and made love to her with his voice, with his words, every now and then with his lips and hands and mouth on her neck, her cheek, her lips. She was captivated, hopelessly in love with him. He was gorgeous, confident and hers.

 

“Tesoro mio” He’d whispered.

 

“What does that mean?” She’d asked, breathless.

 

“My treasure.” He’d responded.

 

“I love you Luca.”

 

“Amore mio.”

 

Isobel had tried to warn her, Geneva had the grace to acknowledge that it was her own hubris that caught her out. She’d thought the little mouse squeaked for jealousy’s sake, for Geneva’s popularity that summer was unrivaled. Isobel, too young to formally come out in any case, and still splotchy in face and gangly in form, was not invited to the wide range of engagements that had Geneva occupied most afternoons and evenings. She’d railed against her sister. She’d called her names, she’d clung to any excuse to see Luca, telling herself that the doubts and concerns Isobel expressed were lies from a spiteful, plain little girl. While she was a woman now, experienced and wise. Geneva knew what she wanted and wasn’t about to let her younger sister gainsay her.  

 

But no. It turned out that Isobel wasn’t being a harpy, only worried for her. Lord Dunsany’s decision to send his family ahead to Piedmont for the summer social season had been ill advised. While Lord Dunsany tied up the loose ends of his deceased brother-in-law’s business affairs, he should have kept them with him, or sent a more eagled eyed chaperon to accompany them. His sister, their Aunt Mary-- though here she was called Maria--might have discerned what was happening quickly enough to avoid the disaster that, in retrospect, would result in Geneva never having her debut. But she’d been so struck down by her grief for her husband she’d caught an affliction of the lungs that kept her bedridden most days. Mama believed it her duty to nurse Maria and never suspected that Geneva’s virtue was in danger.   But it had been and by the time Geneva understood the depth of the difficulty, it was too late to repair her reputation.

 

The shock of it hadn’t quite dissipated from being caught in the conservatory of the Villa della Regina during the last ball she’d attended with Luca. She remembered the feel of his arms around her. The solid weight of his body setting hers aflame. The danger of being caught adding to the pleasure. They’d been stealing kisses and caresses for weeks. It had all been leading somewhere, she understood that much.

 

Luca made her feel the most unspeakable things. He would coo in her ear, called her bellissima. Whisper as he touched her, kissed her, knelt in the grass beside her. Yet this was the first time her corset had been loosened, her breast exposed. The shiver and clutch of her body as he placed her _nipple_ in his mouth. His hand on her _oh my God!_ The wonder of that feeling, _that rippling sensation on her spine._ Geneva cried out and arched as he moaned right along with her. Her body had been straining and striving on the edge of something she had no name for.

 

Geneva could still hear the shocked gasp of the Contessa, accompanied by her lover, ironically looking for a place for a private assignation as well. They’d practically tripped over her supine form. It could have been contained at that moment. The Contessa wouldn’t have said a word as she hadn’t  wanted to be caught cheating either. But Geneva would never forget the sound of the Contessa’s lover as he chortled while hastening from the room to spread the tale. Charles Stuart, the pretender to the throne of England had been the coup de grace on her ruination. Twice now that man had gutted the Dunsany family. The Rising had been responsible for Gordon’s death and now that popinjay was her undoing, as well.

 

The speed of the gossip that went through the crowd was mind boggling. The cold, hard feeling in her gut when Luca had refused to protect her, to offer her marriage. The truth coming out at last. Betrayed. Ruined. Shamed.

Her father would never forgive her. She would never forgive Luca, the spineless cur! A few weeks of distance and hard won perspective had taught her that she hadn’t been in love with him at all. She’d been in lust. Too late, she understood the difference.

 

Now, here she was, back at Helwater and a month away from her impending nuptials to Lord Ellesmere. A man old enough to be her grandfather. In his rage at her, Lord Dunsany had revealed that he’d lost a fortune in the the ‘Change and she’d been sold off at a discount price. From damaged goods to hastily wed in less time that she could ever have fathomed.

 

But when she looked in the mirror Geneva was the same girl she had been when she left--- older perhaps, wiser, definitely. But her dark hair remained glossy and smooth, her smile was the same, her blue eyes, her flawless skin. It was all still the same. She had been a foolish, trusting, naive girl, maybe. Instead of feeling ashamed, she felt enraged.

 

The unfairness of society not educating women about their bodies, about the difference between love and lust and then blaming them for their very naivate was galling. As was the fact that Luca left her to bear the brunt of everything when there had been two of them on those rides, two of them stealing kisses in gardens and at dances. Yet it was she who had fallen, she who was a soiled dove, she who had been left without any options save marriage or nunnery.

 

So, forced to the altar she was, to marry a man who made it eminently clear that he was to have her undying gratitude and her body at his complete and total disposal to do as he saw fit--- however he saw fit-- for the rest of her life. She’d been damned, lost any hope of future happiness and for what? Geneva still she had no idea of what would have happened if they hadn’t been caught out, what it would have felt like to have Luca finish what he started. To know what it was that her body had been yearning for for the whole of the summer in his arms.

 

Ever since that night Osborne, her ladies maid, had been chattier than usual. Assuming she knew what sexual congress actually was all about. Aunt Maria, too had treated Geneva as if she was now a woman of experience. In fact, just before returning home, Maria, in what Gevena only assumed must be a most bizarre and misplaced sense of guilt, had presented Geneva with a small collection of books including _Pamela_ and Mary Astell’s _A Serious Proposal To Ladies_ in which Ms. Astell set forth some very good points about the dubious benefit conferred by marriage to women. That advice coming far, far too late for her.

 

Geneva wisely had listened more than she spoke, started reading what Maria gave her and firmly refused to answer any questions or inquiries from anyone. The lack of choice she’d been given made it all a moot point. Her family had already decided how she was going to answer each and every question they posed: with an “I do” standing next to a man who had nothing but contempt for her.

 

As for herself, she had only one question she wanted an answer to -- what was it like to slake one’s thirst, to drink deep and be sated? One thing she knew of a certainty, thinking back on this afternoon’s tea, of how her old goat of a fiance looked licking crumbs from his thick, fat lips and exchanging smirks with the footmen in the drawing room, was that Lord Ellesmere was not going to be the man to provide her with that answer.

 


	3. Lady Lemon

“Mac!” Jamie ignored the summons, continuing to file. He had the gelding’s leg secured in the vee of his legs, resting against the thick leather apron. The horse hated hands on hoof so there was nojoy in prolonging the task. Just a few more minu——

 

“MacKenzie, look sharp!”

 

He sighed and carefully placed Clover’s hoof down.He whispered his regrets in low tones to Clove, so low he, in fact, could not hear his own voice above the rustles and whinnies that were the music of the stable. This was his one indulgence - to speak in Gaelic to the horses. He’d tried to force the words in English for months before finally giving in and reverting.The soothing rhythms of his homeland could not be replicated in any other way and calm for them and him only came thus. Not having time to properly wash his hands, Jamie exited into the sunshine of the barnyard wiping his hands on a rag.

 

“Yes?” He fixed his stare on Thomas, who was holding a collection of broken straw in his hand.

 

“Lady Lemon,” he started using the most mild of nicknames the stable lads had for Geneva Dunsany, “has decided to ride today. Time to draw straws.” Jamie said nothing but his brow rose in question. “Unless, that is, you wish to volunteer to squire her?” As much as he loved riding throughout the estate, Jamie couldn’t help the involuntary shudder that went through him at the thought.

 

He’d heard more than enough regarding Lady Geneva’s questionable charms. Spoilt, sharp-tongued shrew was pretty much how everyone described her and now that she was being hastened off to kirk, a slattern as well. He vaguely remembered seeing her the first day he arrived but beyond dark hair and perfect posture, he’d no recollection of the details.

 

“Oy!” Robert crowed.

 

Thomas drew the short straw just as the lady herself rounded the corner. Her skin was a pale white, the contrast of her sharp blue eyes arresting. Her figure was displayed to full advantage in a closely tailored riding costume the likes of which Jamie hadn’t seen since Paris. The funds expended on the elaborate trimmings alone would have fed his sister and her family for a month. Jamie noticed a slight hesitation in her step as if she knew they’d just been speaking of her. He supposed that since her return she’d been subjected to all manner ofwhispers and tittering from below and above stairs.Yet she stood ramrod straight and her haughty expression didn’t falter.

 

“Why is my horse not ready?” The crisp edges of her accent snapped and lashed over the grooms four of whom scurried away at once about their business. Jamie did not. Having already interrupted his day due to her nonsense, he had no immediate task that required his attention. It hadn’t occurred to him until it was too late that perhaps he should have pretended otherwise.

 

He realized he was rudely staring when she made a noise and her blue eyes narrowed. He found himself caught, skin flushed slightly as the heat of it crawled up his chest and neck.Servitude didn’t come easy to him but courtesy should have. Behindhim he could hear Robert readying her horse, Peleus, and the retreating steps of Thomas getting his coat.

 

“Milady?”He inquired. “May I be of service?”

 

“You are the Scotchman?” She demanded. She’d tan the hide off any man who allowed her to get the upper hand, he could see that at once. But he also saw just how very young she was, too . He understood what it was to be the object of speculation and gossip and hadn’t cared for it overmuch.

 

“I am.” He admitted and made a tiny inclination of his head— not enough to be a bow but with an air of one who knows he really should have made more of an effort and chose not to.

 

“A barbarous race.” He saw a twinkle in her eye as she made a solute with her quirt. “Your insolence does you credit, I suppose.” She nodded as she brushed past him.

 

Well and if that wasn't a backhanded compliment! Jamie bit the inside of his lip to keep the laugh from escaping as Thomas assisted her to the saddle.

 

“Thomas, it’s been months since I was out. I fancy the north country.” Geneva turned her horse in the direction of those steeper and narrower trails. Thomas was a competent rider only and Jamie saw the lad pale a little as he uttered a half-hearted sound of protest. Geneva’s head snapped around at once. “Do try and keep up and endeavor not to be so useless!” Her heels dug into the gelding and she took off like a shot.Thomas trailing further and further behind.Jamie watched as she deliberately eschewed the well tended open gate and jumped the stone fence instead, never breaking form.

 

“That one needs a good boot in the hindquarters.” Jamie muttered.

 

“The horse or my sister?” For the second time that day, Jamie felt the warmth of a blush. 

 

“Pardon, milady. That was unforgivably rude of me.” What was her name again?

 

“It is of no matter, my sister has been a bit of a trial of late.” The little wren gave him a shy smile.

 

Jamie marveled at the whim of God to have created such different women from the same ancestral blood. For if Geneva was bold in looks and mannerisms, this one was in danger of melting into the backdrop, browns and grays and nothing terribly distinctive. His own family was as variable— how dark was Jenny and how fair Willie? For a moment it was hard to breathe as he thought of the wee posset of Faith’s hair nestled in the locket Jenny’d smuggled out to him, the most precious keepsake left of… _Ifrinn! Think of her he COULD NOT!_ …from his time in Paris.Between himself and Jenny they’d managed a half dozen letters carried by _Roma-post_ as the gypsies travelled to and fro largely escaping any scrutiny. He wiped his mind clean with deliberate intention.

 

“Shall I saddle your horse for you, La—milady?”

 

“I’m Lady Isobel and I don’t ride anymore but I love spending time with them. I find it upsetting that my father confines such splendid creatures.” She said.

 

“The horses are housed and treated with the utmost care, Lady Isobel.” Jamie hastened to reassure her.

 

Isobel walked with him back into the stables, offering small bits of dried apple as she went stall to stall. Jamie walked beside her.

 

“You are the groom from Lord John, called MacKenzie?”

 

“Yes, milady.”

 

“I can still detect a Sottish accent though so you haven’t lived in England for very long. Were you a groom at Melton’s as well?”

 

“I have cared for horses all my life.” He almost left it at that but honesty compelled him to add, “but I have been a great many things and lived in a great many places.“

 

“Oh, where, aside from Scotland?” Isobel saw his expression close up at once. “I ask because I have only ever been to London and northern Italy.” But she hurriedly moved on to safer topic. “You did not mind leaving Lord Melton’s employ?”

 

“It was not my place to say. Lord John bade me come. I am here.” Jamie said simply.

 

“And do you find yourself….housed and treated with the utmost care, MacKenzie?” Those soft gray eyes cut right through him.

 

“I have lived in much worse conditions, milady.” He equivocated.

 

“And yet, a cage is still a cage, is it not?” She said softly. Jamie wondered how much she knew of his personal circumstances. “My sister’s new home will be gilded and luxurious but having no choice but to go where bade, either, she, too, will find it confining.”

 

“I am sure Lord Dunsany has made her the best possible match.” The “ _under the circumstances”_ remained unspoken but hung in the air nevertheless. Isobel gave him a sad smile.

 

“I am sure most daughters would be appreciative, even if their intended is a sonorous contemporary of their father’s…or grandfather’s, in this case.” Isobel didn’t try and hide the bite behind her remark. “But have you ever noticed that some women have a different kind of vitality? There is a pulse of energy around them and you can see it- the need they have to chart their own course— to have a life’s journey that exists of more than movingfrom under the roof of their fathers to the roof of their husbands?” Her cheeks turned pink. “Perhaps you do not believe women capable of any ambition?” Those pale gray eyes searched his but she didn’t wait for his response. “But by virtue of gender we are denied all avenues of improvement. We are permitted only such education as our fathers deign appropriate, aside from occupations of drudgery or immorality denied the opportunity to seek employment, and even were we to find some path to fulfill our desires we are then denied the right to manage our earnings as we see fit. We not only cannot own property but are considered in and of ourselves to be the property of our husbands!” Isobel became overwrought. No stranger to impassioned women, Jamie said nothing as he walked behind her, allowing her to get herself to get under control.

 

“It is not always so between a man and a woman.” He said softly. “Within the marital relationship there is often more give and take than what meets the eye. Your sister may find more freedom, not less, as the wife of a man of prominence.”Isobel cast her eyes over her shoulder to where Mac was standing, making an effort, she noticed, not to crowd her with his overly large body in the confined space of the stable row.

 

“Mayhap you are right. Though I am afraid her talents do not run to those considered respectable for married— or unmarried— ladies.” Jamie kept his face completely blank hearing Isobel’s inadvertent double entendre.Lately, Lady Geneva’s “talents” had been subjected to no end of speculation amongst the servants. “Did you know it was she who found the comet claimed by Victor Arbuthnot?”

 

“The astronomer?” Jamie asked.

 

“Yes. She did all the calculations on the trajectory. She’s always been very good in maths. When we were in Italy, we met a woman named Laura Bassi. Signora Bassi had been permitted to study at the University of Bologna and admitted as a professor of biology—hired to teach male students! It is considered respectable because her husband teaches there, too. I suppose finding a gentleman of means who is academically minded was as difficult for Signora Bassi as it would have been for Geneva. But that doesn’t matter anymore for she has lost any chance of having the opportunity to look.” They had come back full circle to the stable doorway. “I thank you for keeping me company, MacKenzie. I do apologize for prattling on. I shall take my leave, and bid you good day.”

 

It was getting near tea time when Thomas came back to the stable.   
  
“Is the Lady far behind you?” Jamie asked.   
  
“No, good riddance, I say. I managed to catch her up on the glen but she demanded I race her along the cliff walk and when I refused she spun Peleus around and charged through the woods. I've been wandering ‘round calling for her ever since.” Thomas eased off his horse and began to unsaddle her.  
  
“Do you mean to say you left her out there alone?” Jamie’s temper was rising.   
  
“No, Mac. She left me.” Thomas looked a bit chagrined but resolute. “You know Blossom hasn't been acting right. She's got no stamina these days. I looked for over an hour in dense woods and she was winded— look at how wet she is!” Jamie did look and while the horse was bedraggled, it was Thomas who looked completely done in. “Don’t worry, Lady Lemon will turn up soon, knows the place like the back of her hand, better than me!”   


Jamie managed to hold off his worries for a half an hour but despite both John Coachman and Thomas’s reassurance she’d be back before long with no harm done didn’t reassure Jamie in the least. What was clear was none of the stable hands was going to make a concerted effort at retrieval. 

  
Jamie went to see Mr. Hanks, the estate manager, who kept his own cottage a half a mile from the far paddock. Jamie had saddled Millie Fleurs, who, while skittish, had stamina and strength and would do his bidding without question.   
  
“The horse was last seen in the woods below the cliff walk?” Mr. Hunt repeated. 

 

“Thomas said he looked but never found it.” Jamie was cautious of Geneva’s already damaged reputation. For all that she had recklessly given Thomas the slip, he didn’t think she’d thought it through. She was without chaperone now and truly didn’t need more gossip directed her way. He was, after all, looking for her horse as much as her so the omission ofinformation wasn’t a lie.   
  
They had spread a few of the maps of the estate on the desk in his office.  Jamie was trying to orient himself. The area was at the far edges of his parole and as a rule he usually kept well inside the borders so there could never be any question of his actions. He could see that the woods under the cliff thinned out into pastureland with a lake beyond. A series of small crofts and game huts were scattered along the route with a larger cottage near the lake. 

 

“What is this?” Jamie pointed to a cluster of rough sketches along the lakeshore. 

 

“Ah! Lord Dunsany’s Folly! Built by the third Lord Dunsany mind, not this one. There used to be more interest in the Lake House, the present family never goes there but Lord Dunsany’s father loved the place and had a series of follies— sculpture and natural elements most pleasing to the eye— scattered on a native trek.” 

 

Jamie snorted. Only the English would feel the need to manufacture interesting things to look at while on a walk in the woods and think the money well spent. Having a feel for the area, Jamie packed a wee kit with water and bandages, a bit of cheese and apple and a warm cloak and set out to find Geneva Dunsany before the alarm could be raised in the big house. 

 

He almost missed the scrap of blue spread low in a swale running beside the folly path. As he approached, Jamie could see Peleus placidly eating grass. When he scented Millie, the horse started moving closer. Jamie quickly hobbled the horses and removed his pack from behind the saddle. He knelt beside Geneva and ran his fingers along her throat checking for a pulse, relieved to feel a steady beat. No obvious blood or visible bruising. Jamie brushed his fingers along the flawless skin of forehead and cheek. No fever, either.He gently rolled her over, pretending not to notice the firm shape of her breast as his hand shifted her onto her back. He squatted by her feet and tried to ascertain the source of her injury but her riding habit was layered over so many petticoats he couldn’t feel anything. 

 

With an oath Jamie gingerly raised her skirt up above her boot line. She wore white silk stockings with vines of a climbing rose embroidered all along her shapely calves. Jamie stared for a minute, it had been years since he’d seen anything so feminine. He debated taking her boots off but couldn’t imagine how to do it without a jack or her cooperation so contented himself with feeling her ankles, no sign of a break. He slowly moved each foot, testing the range of motion. All clear. He carefully moved his hands up the stiff leather, pressing a little harder when he reached skin. Perhaps it was only the name but to him she did indeed smell of lemons...and honeysuckle. He was relieved that his hands were not leaving dirty smudges on the luxurious fabric that encased her legs. It had been so long since he felt anything so soft, so slippery. 

 

Jamie closed his eyes, thinking that the sight of her legs, exposed as they were, was only inflaming him. He made a low sound in his throat at the sensory richness of using touch and feel alone. She was far more shapely under her clothing than he would have guessed. His fingers slipped behind her fuller calf muscles and spread wide around her knees. As with her feet, he took each leg in hand and moved the joint up and down. He tried very hard not to notice how cold her skin was in contrast to the heat of his hands. Still no obvious difficulty in her body. Jamie shifted his weight, which only brought his own body’s reaction to the situation into focus. He quickly removed one hand to adjust himself but realized he wasn’t likely to find any position of reasonable accommodation. Jesus, he really should not be doing this. Yet how else was he to discern what was wrong with her? His body’d reaction was physical, normal, he told himself, of little meaning and not important enough to justify not rendering the lady further help. 

 

Jamie opened his eyes to find himself looking down at her legs, his ministrations had shifted the skits higher, above the knee now. He swallowed hard. The green vines had turned to red petals in the form of clusters of tight little buds. He watched as his hands travelled up her thighs so trim that he could clutch one in his palm. Jamie didn’t notice that they’d parted for him of their own accord.His fingers rubbed north, front and back searching for any explanation. He was nearing the midpoint of her leg and as he lifted up to check along the back. He was suddenly conscious of the change of temperature under his skin. She was much warmer here, near her center. The breeze shifted and he caught the scent of her. How long…how bloody long had it been since he’d smelled a woman? That tantalizing musk, my God! His mouth parted as his eyes closed.When he opened them again he found to his absolute shock that hers were now open too. 

 

“What are you doing?” She whispered. 

 

 


	4. Le Vice Anglais

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time…..
> 
> When he opened them again he found to his absolute shock that hers were now open too.
> 
> “What are you doing?” She whispered.

 

 

_GPOV_ :

He reeled backwards as if she’d slapped him. She knew that is what she should have done, what a proper lady would do. Geneva could feel her whole body flush, certain that her cheeks were turning red.But now that he’d snatched his hands out from under her skirts all she could feel was the loss. The heat of his palms, the gentle glide of his long fingers as they travelled from her shin to her knee, the slow parting of her thighs and the tickle up the inside of her leg all made her acutely conscious of an ache having nothing to do with her fall from the saddle. 

 

Geneva recognized the feeling at once— it was the same longing she’d felt pressed tight against Luca. She’d attributed that to love— or the mistaken belief of it— but she barely knew MacKenzie! Yet he’d made her _burn._ She’d been holding her breath— not three minutes after she’d finally gotten it back — willing him to inch just a little higher, the sharp tang of desire running through her and how he’d teased her! Soft, feather-like touches coming closer…and closer to the heat of her. She’d been absolutely certain he could hear the thumping of her racing heart. If she didn’t move, she would die, she knew it. That’s what she’d opened her eyes, spoken aloud the first thing that popped into her head. She had to do _something_ to stop herself. 

 

“Where are you hurt, lass?” 

 

“N-not there!” She said pointedly. “Peleus got spooked and threw me.I had the wind knocked out of me.” Geneva tried to sit upright, intending to pull her skirts back over her exposed limbs. As she twitched her wrist, though, a searing pain snaked up her spine causing her to expel what little breath she had and hunch protectively on her side. She heard herselfwhimper as she tried to get air into her lungs. It took a great deal of effort. Through the fog she heard him clearly. 

 

“Tis yer back.” He said with certainty. 

 

“Y-yes” She breathed. 

 

“I need to move ye a bit. Relax, in and out slow, shallow, aye?” 

 

“Oh!” The heat of his hands centered on her shoulders, hip, lower back as he applied firm pressure and carefully, patiently eased her onto her stomach. He was murmuring too low for her to know what he was saying. She felt her body ease by small degrees. MacKenzie’smovements became more insistent, digging deeper into her muscles. She groaned as he hit a particularly tender spot. 

 

“Sorry.” He said but didn’t lessen the pressure. 

 

Geneva became aware of the noises that she was making in response to his ministrations. His hands roamed along her spine, up into her neck. 

 

“Try and hold still. I ken it’s no’ easy but I need to—” He worked his hands at an angle into her shoulder blade and then pressed down evenly. A loud pop made her cry out in surprise. 

 

“Are ye alright, my lady?” 

 

She huffed. “No.” 

 

“Shall I stop?” 

 

“No.” That earned her a chuckle. “It doesn’t hurt so much now.” Geneva craned her neck around to make eye contact which was a grave mistake. “Ouch!”

 

“I told ye no’ to move. Dinna be naughty, lass!” A little thrill went through her at his sharp tone. “Do ye turn again, there goes all my hard work. Where shall we be then?” He scolded in a way that let her know he wasn’t truly upset. 

 

Once more, those magical hands began the difficult job of unknotting her spasming muscles. Geneva sighed in relief and bit her lip to prevent louder noises of gratitude from escaping. She felt him along the back of her head, parting the dark coil bound at her nape and working out yet another tense knot. His fingers walked themselves down toward her rear once more, pushing and releasing, over and over. She groaned in satisfaction when she felt his hands digging into the meat of her hip, rolling and parting her buttocks accidentally but no less noticeably. Geneva was blushing once more, all her vows to not be a simpering fool shot to hell. 

 

“Why are you grabbing my——?” She started to ask, shifting to look at his face. 

 

“Tsk! My lady, stop!” He adjusted her back into position. “Rest your weight against my arms.” 

 

She squeaked as one of those arms scooped up and under her chest. His thumb accidentally brushing across her breast, one finger seemed to linger on her suddenly erect nipple. He pressed his other hand to the center of her back and applied downward pressure and popped her spine once more. 

 

“Oh!” She exhaled, instantly relieved. He repeated the movement on her other side but there was no change, no release. MacKenzie moved closer for more leverage. His arm came back under her chest. Now the palm of his had was firmly— if not accidentally— up against her breast as he tried to find the right angle. She felt his knee thrust unceremoniously between her slightly spread legs, his hard thigh wedged against her bottom. She moaned, doing her best to pretend it was a cry of pain but in reality the press of his body against hers was making her pant. 

 

Her whole body shivered and when he tightened his grip and she found herself tightly wedged against his—his…her face crimsoned. She thought he was as surprised as she but he didn’t let go. She squirmed closer. God, Luca was nothing by comparison. Her eyes crossed slightlyin the effort to refrain from rubbing harder against him. She heard an unexpected crack. They both sighed in relief and he used that momentary distraction to inch his leg out and away from her, his palms moved back across to the middle of her back once more, almost absently running her spine. 

 

“Better?” He asked. She could heard the smile in his voice. 

 

“Much. How did you know what to do?” Once again her eyes sought out his. MacKenzie reacted before she could undo his handiwork. She felt his fingers on her jawline as he placed her head forward once again but not before he noticed her grin and shared a shy one of his own. It completely transformed his face. He was beautiful— she hadn’t noticed. A well put together man. 

 

“I’ve hurt my back a time or two. Massage and realignment usually does the trick.” Was all he said. She noticed his Scots accent was far less pronounced now that she was no longer in immediate trouble. “Come, Lady Geneva, let’s get you on your feet.” 

 

He didn’t rush her, let her move slowly and carefully upright. They shifted as she took a few tentative steps toward Peleus. Geneva spotted the lump to her right and gave a small cry of alarm. She brushed off of her groom and crossed the road under her own power, kneeing into the tall grass to confirm what she suspected. The forget-me-nots she’d so carefully harvested from the Lake House had been irrevocably crushed in her fall. The only thing salvageable was her riding crop which, inexplicably, had gotten caught under the burlap sack. She heard him approach and looked up. MacKenzie’s eyes rested on her hands. He could see the cause was hopeless and his touch was exceptionally tender as he helped her stand once more. 

 

“Did you need me to get you some more?” He asked quietly. Geneva pressed her hand hard on his arm — acknowledging his kindness— but shook her head, her eyes filling with tears.

 

“They were the last of the ones we had on the estate. I was going to try and salvage the strain experimenting in the conservatory. Gordon—my brother— they were his favorite.” 

 

“Aye? They grow wild all over the Scottish countryside.” He said, then hesitatingly added, “I am sorry about your loss.” Geneva knew he’d meant Gordon and not the flowers and an answering sorrow in his eyes pulled at her. 

 

“I imagine that more Scottish sisters and mothers lost men than English ones did.” She said very carefully. For an instant she saw it and her breath caught in her throat. Yes, he evidently had losses of his own and cutting deep below the surface. He masked it quickly, though. “I am sorry for your…losses as well.” She whispered and touched his arm again, it was the last thing he’d wanted to think about, much less discuss. 

 

MacKenzie shrugged her off with a small grimace, her flowing bell sleeves flipped up and back caught on the wind, exposing the skin around her wrist.Geneva flushed when she saw all the thin cuts all along the underside of her arm and she quickly made to cover them. If MacKenzie noticed, he said nothing. 

 

“Scots and English do have one thing in common— we keep a stiff upper lip and get on wi’ it.” He told her firmly. She gave him a sourpuss expression. “That’s it, my lady, forget the honey, flies like their vinegar, too.” 

 

“I am quite aware, MacKenzie, that I am called Lady Lemon.” Her expression was so perfectly apt that it startled a surprised laugh from him. Her chin came up a notch. “I don’t mind, to be honest. Nasty names hurt my feelings less than silence. In silence, I am invisible, so far beneath contempt that I don’t rate notice at all. My father hasn’t spoken to me since… well. I guess from his perspective, he’s lost two of his children in one year. I wish he would _say_ something, _do_ something. If only he would yell, or scream or beat me—I’d gladly take any punishment! To just be ignored completely is _unbearable_.” She confessed. 

 

“Is that why you do it?” MacKenzie gestured to her hands with his chin. Geneva turned scarlet. 

 

“Yes…no. I don’t know.” She said truthfully. “I haven’t thought to ask _why_. I used to be confident. I had a sense of myself. I don’t just mean because I was to the manor born or because men find me attractive. Both granted me by virtue of genetic lottery and nothing to do with me alone. Even if those superficial things were gone, I would’ve still known who I was. But Italy changed me. I fear I have lost something even more valuable than my reputation. It has no name— it doesn’t need one.” Geneva turned her back, unable to look at him while she discussed something so private. “It’s that bit deep inside your soul that is just for yourself alone. Whatever that is, it’s gone and I can’t seem to find a way back to myself.” Geneva was now looking at his face once more. She didn’t want MacKenzie’s pity but what she read in his face was understanding. “All I know is that doing that…the cutting makes me feel…And when I do, I am not as scared.”

 

“What are ye scared of?” He asked, the impossible blue of his eyes reached into her soul.

 

“That all of these feelings I have inside me will never get out! That I will die before I have a chance to live and no one— not even me— will care.” She felt her hand gripping her riding crop and almost absently whipped it down across the open palm of her hand. That felt better.She’d be damned if she’d shed more tears. Geneva gave herself one more thwack for good measure and the pressure in her skull eased a little -- anger was a far more productive emotion than fear. 

 

“That expression does you far more credit than when you pout, milady.” He teased. 

 

Oh the bloody Scot! She hated being goaded— it reminded her too much of what it had been like to be Gordon’s little sister and the sharp loss of her old life. Her arm lashed out, intending to whip the grin off his face. Quick as lightning, MacKenzie disarmed her.

 

“Not on your life, my lady! I have half a mind to bend you over my knee and smack your arse with this!” 

 

“I’d like to see you try!” She retorted making a reach and getting her hand around the crop, refusing to let go even when MacKenzie tugged it. He was quite a bit taller and stronger— and so it wasn’t much of a contest. Her chest was heaving with effort and the buttons on her riding habit had sprung loose. She could feel her hair, already loosened from MacKenzie’s work on her neck and shoulders, come down completely.

 

“I am glad to see my earlier efforts made your back much better, Lady Geneva.” He said sardonically. One hand firmly kept her at bay while the other rose above his head holding the whip aloft. The movement caused his fitted livery jacket to ride up his body and expose his tight fitting buff breeches. When her hip came into contact with him she felt a firmness that had her cheeks blushing. He was magnificent! She could tell the instant he became aware of his own arousal. His expression changed at once. Both arms came in front of him as he sought to create distance between them. She didn’t blame him, between her hair falling loose and her clothing in disarray she must be quite a sight. 

 

“I like how you touched me— that is your touch made me feel better— I mean I—I am not sure I thanked you properly.” Geneva finally managed to squeak out. He snorted in return. 

 

“I dinna need thanks, ’tis my duty.” He said gruffly but she caught him staring at a long silken lock of her hair as it curled against her breast. 

 

“A…duty?” Geneva bit her bottom lip. His words had stung. He watched her teeth as they rhythmically pressed down, not quite hard enough to draw blood. 

 

“A—and my pleasure, too.” MacKenzie admitted and she caught a look of frank desire on his face. He quickly covered it over with a small smile. “Now…I am willing to return this to you if you will promise to be good.” He held the handle out toward her intending for her to take it from him. 

 

Geneva crossed her arms in front of her, considering. “So, I get it back if I behave? What will I get if I don’t?” 

 

MacKenzie spoke without thought, “Ye’ll get what ye deserve, I expect and I’m no’ going to apologize for it either!” 

 

“Ooh! That sounds promising. Shall I just….maybe… bend over that fallen log over there?” She gestured to a spot behind MacKenzie and started unbuttoning her jacket as she moved into position before he could formulate a response. 

 

By the time he’d caught up with her, she had arranged herself perfectly, pert ass up in the air. The bark cutting against her blouse and making her nipples hurt just a little. That clench between her thighs had returned and grew more pronounced as she watched him from the corner of her eye. He was holding the crop firmly in one hand, tapping it gently against his leg as his huge strides ate the ground up like a great stalking cat.Her body tingled with excitement when his boots came to rest next to her. She looked up at him from beneath her inky lashes. 

 

“Do ye mean to tell me ye want me ta—ta—Och no, lass, ye canna possibly!” His accent was back, his color was up and he positively thrummed with unbridled excitement. 

 

“Yes, I could. I want you to teach me a lesson. I’ve been a bad girl and you must punish me.” She nodded and rolled her bottom temptingly. His throat worked convulsively as he tried to swallow. 

 

“I dinna want to hurt you.” He prevaricated and she shook her head in return. 

 

“The pain feels good to me. I am told it’s maybe a particularly English sentiment.” She said off hand. 

 

“ _Le Vice Anglais_.” MacKenzie confirmed in surprisingly good French. “Tis what they say in Paris about the English fascination with being spanked.” He was blushing! 

 

“It will help me, I think.” She told him seriously. He continued to stare at her, considering. Geneva took a deep breath and said softy, “Please don’t make me beg.” 

 

She knew when he’d decided that matter, for his expression changed at once and with it he turned into another person right before her eyes. Geneva realized that most of the time he kept his eyes downcast and his shoulders hunched as if to make himself appear smaller, weaker or perhaps just less noticeable. Now, though, she could see just how powerful he was. His feet were braced apart and he inhaled sharply, humming in speculation as he exhaled. MacKenzie’s shoulders were drawn back, his spine elongated, his chin held high. When they made eye contact she felt like she was seeing the real man behind his mask for the first time. 

 

Gone was the humble servant and in his place stood a man of substance. If someone had told her he held a title and was a gentleman, she’d have had no trouble seeing him as a peer. How on God’s green earth had anyone in her family not seen the truth of it at once? Lord, he was a sight to behold and whatever else he was, she was certain he hadn’t been a groom at Pardloe’s estate. This man was complex, intelligent, charming and challenging. Now, he was looking at her the way a man looked at a woman and it made her heart speed up rapidly. She gasped as he, too, shed his coat, draping it across her discarded one. It felt deliciously intimate. He cocked his head to the side and snapped the crop against his uncovered palm. She trembled remembering how good it felt to her. 

 

With absolutely no preliminaries, the crop whistled in the air just before it striped her backside. Even through her dense clothing it felt marvelous!There was a charged silence. 

 

“Don’t make you beg?” He intoned. “Oh my dear Lady Lemon, I’ll have ye begging before we are done! Do ye understand me?” 

 

“Y-yes!” She was nodding her head vigorously, her hair falling over her eyes. She heard him tsk and thrilled at the sound he made. 

 

“Yes, what?” The crop came down again, much harder and she moaned. 

 

“Yes, Master MacKenzie!” 

 

“That’s better, my dear. Have you had enough?” He asked but she was already shaking her head. 

 

“M—more!” She commanded. 

 

“Manners!” He hit her again at once, the third stripe connecting before she’d even had time to settle. 

 

Now he said nothing.She could hear her own strained breaths in the quiet stillness. The squeak of his leather boots as he moved somewhere behind her. She couldn’t turn to look. In fact, she held as still as she could remembering how twisting her spine hurt her and how adamantly he had corrected her when the whip wasn’t in his hand. Geneva wasn’t too keen on finding out how he’d fix her posture when he was armed like this. So she waited in an agony of anticipation, wondering what he was doing. 

 

She gave a small shriek when she felt his huge hands on either side of her hips. How had she forgotten the heat of them? Her nipples hardened in contrast with the cool breeze. He had her cradled between those palms, hip bones pressed into the center of each hand as he pushed her farther over the log and moved her body until it rested in a manner most pleasing to him. Her knees had lost contact with the ground and it was unsettling to a thrilling degree to her. Geneva almost goaded him, wanting desperately to feel another lash across her now precariously placed backside when she felt the sudden coolness of the late afternoon air across her skin. She felt herself lose contact with the bark as he bunched the fabric under her, taking skirt, overskirt, and several layers and wedging them between her stomach and the log. 

 

Oh God! He’d pushed her all of her underskirts completely up her legs! What he’d been exploring by touch as he tried to figure out where she’d been hurt was now completely exposed to his eyes. Her own were closed, thinking back to getting dressed earlier. She’d wanted to wear the budding spring hose. It seemed fitting for her chore today if not a bit impractical for such grubby work. She liked stockings that told a story as they went up the graceful lines of her limbs. A private tale for herself alone. 

 

These started as bits of greenery, then graceful leaves and tiny buds appeared until almost at the very top of the thigh, bloomed roses. The red string that kept them in place tied just below the tightly defined center of each flower, leaving unobscured each beautiful red petal as it unfurled over the very top of the stockings. 

 

He groaned taking her in. She could only imagine how her pale, exposed bottom looked in contrast to the rest of the scene. Geneva felt that ache again and she tried to squeeze her thighs together, needing to rub that one spot and hoping that he wouldn’t notice. 

 

“You’ve a verra round arse.” He told her. 

 

“Do I? I’ve never noticed.” She lied. 

 

“Aye, ye do.” 

 

She heard the whistle before the smack. “Ohhhhh!” She breathed out. Applied to her bare skin it felt quite different. 

 

“Shall I keep going?” He asked. 

 

“Oh yes…please.” She whispered but he made no move to do anything else. 

 

“Tsk!” The place between her exposed legs shivered at that sound. 

 

“Please, Master MacKenzie!” She added hastily. 

 

“What shall we do to correct your bad behavior Lady Lemon?” It was a rhetorical question so she kept quiet. “Ye shall be made to count, I think. And as you asked to be punished, milady, you shall set the number. Pick a good one for ye shall get no more and no less.” He warned. 

 

MacKenzie walked to the front of her now so she could see his boots. He brought the crop down to tap against the shaft of his boot. The noise of it made her shudder as she watched it gently striking his leg over and over. She lifted her eyes up his legs, those powerful thighs much easier to discern now that she’d felt them against her own body. Without his jacket she could clearly see the buttons of his flies strained and full. He was enjoying this as much as she. Geneva debated. Too high a number and she wouldn’t be able to stay in her saddle on the ride home, too low and she’d not enjoy it as she meant to. 

 

“Ten” She decided. He laughed as he bound back over the log. 

 

As before, he didn’t give her any warning. She exhaled twice before she was able to say “One!” Her bottom felt the heat of two and three. 

 

She shrieked in surprise as she felt the crop tap the inside of her thigh— not a stripe just an inquiry. He then moved it a little higher. As it pressed between her legs she moaned. 

 

“Alright?” He asked to make sure. 

 

“Master MacKenzie!” She implored- not quite begging but very close to it. _Please oh please do it to me again_! Her brain screamed. 

 

There was very little backswing on number four. The sting of the tip touched her center and made her cry the number in pure sensation. The crop lingered over her core for a few seconds after and she whimpered. She had no ballast and could not shift her weight back against it, could only helplessly grind against the air. She huffed in frustration. 

 

“Spread them wider.” He demanded, and she heard an impatient edge to his voice for the first time. 

 

She’d give anything to see his face, discover if his body was responding as hers. It was it’s own kind of pain, this need for patience, obedience. Not unwelcome in the least. She rocked her body forward and down the front of the log to support more of her legs on the wood surface. This helped her open them as wide as she could. 

 

“Christ, lass!” He breathed. “You are a sight to behold.” 

 

The lustful appreciation of his tone was making her slippery. By pushing off on her arms she discovered she could grind against the wood bringing herself instant relief. He saw her doing it and the next whack came hard across both buttocks. 

 

“Ouch!” She was honestly outraged for a half a minute. 

 

He made a noise in his throat it was a _mmphm_ kind of sound. 

 

“Five! M-Master MacKenzie!” She hastily got out least he redo that one.She waited in an agony of suspense for the next lash to fall. 

 

She nearly screamed when instead of the stripe she felt his lips against her ear. 

 

“Did you find it arousing?” He hissed.

 

By the heat of him, she was aware of how close his body was, his legs straddling hers as he leaned over the log into the back of her head.

 

“A—arousing?” She squeaked.

 

He leapt across and squatted down in front of her line of sight. She hadn’t moved a muscle, her stinging ass felt better as the wind gently caressed the heat of the spanking away. She pushed off with her hands so she could make eye contact with him. Her gaze made it as far as the sweet wide lips of his mouth. The lips parted and she saw the point of his tongue wetting his upper lip, snaking along the top.An evening shave was needed but she liked the faint outline of his beard. What would kissing this man be like she wondered. Her mouth started to water. Then she shifted her face a little lower. The crop was tucked up and under his armpit and his shirt was open at the front, his stock having fallen by the wayside at some point along the way. She couldn’t look away from the soft hairs at the opening, his skin sun-kissed red and the sweat of his exertions dampening the vee forming there. She licked her lips.

 

MacKenzie shifted his weight once more and she lost sight of him.She felt the leather tops of his ring boots against the inside of her knees. She was hot and sweating, making her legs stick to them and her thighs slide against each other when she tried to shift her weight again. 

 

“Did.” He said slowly and deliberately bringing the crop down on her bottom with a sharp slap. She gasped “Six!”

 

As he repeated the action with each of the next words spoken.

 

“I. Make. You….”

 

7, 8 and 9 deliciously roved high and low across her inner thighs and slightly higher up. She hitched her legs to the absolute limits of their stretch for the last one. He didn’t disappoint.

 

“Wet?”

 

“Ten!” She crowed and panted in relief as he kept the crop right where it was, pressed very hard against her, splitting her, trapped in the folds of her secret place, riding up slightly to the cleft between her buttocks.

 

“Ten what?” He wriggled the crop to emphasize his point. She groaned at the sensation.

 

He knew how hot he was making her but Geneva refused to give him the satisfaction of an answer. He laughed and the rumble went right through her.

 

“Oh, Lady Lemon, do ye no’ ken whenever I see ye acting like a sour puss it only makes me want to see ye pucker up sweet for me?” He had her pinned like a butterfly to a velvet case, immobilized.

 

“Then come back here so I can pay my dues.” She told him- her heart racing. Those cherry red lips!

 

“No’ there, lass, ye ken fine what I mean.”

 

She gasped. The thicker his accent, the more untamed he became. She felt the crop thrusting once more against her quim and she moaned thinking of how hard he must be. Then crop fell away.

 


	5. Vinegar and Honey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW....way way NSFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To this little fic's cheerleaders-- a very heartfelt thank you.

Jamie knelt behind her, his knees stretched to the inside of each of her thighs, mesmerized by the sight. The stripes he gave her would soon fade but he couldn’t stop his hand from hovering over each buttock, feeling the heat rising up from her skin.  As much as he’d enjoyed teasing her, she was giving as good as she got. The lass was temptation itself, with her splayed legs and bright red bottom.

 

“M-mmaster MacKenzie?” Her voice thin and high. Jamie bit his lower lip hard to stop himself from chuckling. God but it felt so good to know he was still capable of stealing the breath from a woman.

 

 _Ah Dhia_ she was a beautiful, wild thing and he told her so in a voice so gruff he barely recognized it. He brought his hand down hard once more, the slap ringing out and startling the birds from a bush in the distance. She arched her bottom upwards and whimpered in response. That sound, that NEED traveled straight to his cock. His hand was vibrating and he couldn’t look away from the slick, wet heat of the black haired woman who had opened her body to him. She was real, she was _here_ and pulsing with the very essence of life itself. It had been so long…so very long since he’d touched a woman like this. He’d forgotten the intoxication of soft skin. The smell of a woman aroused was unlike anything else.  

 

He’d spent _years_ walking upon this Earth, a ghost of the man he’d been, moving from day to day with little joy but pain and heartache aplenty. Just marking time. Each night he had PRAYED, beseeched the lord to give him the strength needed to get through one more night, secretly hoping he’d be relieved of the burden of waking the next day, hopes dashed to hell on the sunrise. His only consolation that another day moved him closer to that time, 200 years— no 190 years— hence when he and—but no. He could NOT and would not think of HER. She was a distant dream of perfection, so irrevocably lost to him now as to make her very existence questionable, and the man he’d been… Had he TRULY ever been that young? That…eager and hopeful and HONORABLE? It came back to him in a rush, the PRIDE of being a man who has well pleased a woman— no, not just _any_ woman but _his woman_. That mutual, SACRED SURRENDER of body and soul was the closest thing to PEACE he’d ever known.

 

In the back of his mind he also felt a flash of recognition that tethered him to another time and other feelings, _dark matters_ . While he tried never to consciously call it to mind, fought against it, at this moment, he allowed it in, not in nightmare, but in the light of day— of _this_ day— if only to serve as a check on his own behavior, because her could NEVER not EVER forget the difference betwixt _man_ and _beast._ He _knew_ , of course, the soul crushing TORMENT of being ill used, pinned, helpless and at the mercy of an animal who demanded, _thrilled_ at the sight of  fear, degradation, capitulation.

 

Randall had forced the knowledge on him—not of the evil nature of man-- he’d been mercenary in France, and battle tested since. He knew the horrors men were capable of but always in a detached sort of way. No, what Black Jack had revealed to him was his own nature-- the unholy _lust_ that existed not only in mankind but in _him_ , too. The knowledge of it had scared him to the depths of his soul in Paris. He’d come so close at Madam Elise’s ...so CLOSE, right on the tipping point where the demands of his cock almost overrode his conscience.  

 

When he’d stumbled home, Claire had somehow _known_ and  he was caught out. She’d been angry and hurt but she set it _all_ aside and had given him….understanding, _acceptance,_ the hot, sweet home that could _only_ be found inside a woman. He was a man whole because she’d shown him that grace, _seen_ his flawed countenance and found him worthy, even so.

 

Spread before him now was a different woman, one he’d never imagined offering herself to him as supplicant. Whose body responded to his— _his_ hands, _his_ voice, _his_ commands. Overwhelmed by the carnal desire aroused within..by him. It was _he_ that made her pant and BURN and beg and Christ!...how he’d missed _that_ feeling...that power, that _knowing!_ Unlike the woman who haunted his dreams, who ruled his soul, this one, _this woman_ was real….and she….made him feel like a _man_ once more.

 

It wasn’t _love,_ and God help him for the relief he felt from that awareness. He could see _this_ \--what lay between he and Geneva-- with clarity and he felt no shame. For it was only human to crave _touch_. In Ardsmuir, it was what he missed the most for no one dared to touch him, not even in friendship, in solidarity.

 

Jamie knew he could not take her simply to satisfy his own aching hunger. He was no longer a _thing_ to be toyed with, at the mercy of another,  left _confused_ and _in dread_ for his very soul but, so too, he could not, _would not_ leave her to her own similar torment. He could _show_ her, as he was shown; he could give to her that solace at least. Teach her she need not fear what her body was feeling.  He could take her with him, share with her that incandescent light within.

 

“Lady Lemon,” he rasped as he pressed his body forward, his length notching perfectly against her rear. He lowered his lips to just behind her ear and he could not help rounding into the soft cushion of her backside. “I’ll stop if ye say.  I’ll never breathe a word of this to anyone, not ever. No matter what ye decide.” Her answer was the deliberate cant of her hips upwards but Jamie asked anyway. “Do you want to continue?” Geneva moaned.

 

“My Lady, ye must  say the words. Yes or no?” Jamie had to make sure.

 

“Yes, damn you!” Geneva turned her red face and tried to look him in the eye. Oh she was in a right swivet! “I told you before, I will not beg!”  

 

Jamie was perilously close to laughing at her revisionist recollection of their earlier conversation. “Ye said no such thing. Though,” His eyes cast over her toes to crown thoughtfully, “As I recall, I did promise to _make_ you beg.”  Her peevish mood evaporated instantly and a coy smile played on her lips. She gave him a half-shrug.

 

“Well, then?” Geneva cooed.  

 

Jamie’s teeth gently closed around her earlobe causing her to shiver.  “Yer temptation itself, lass.” He wedged himself tighter against her. “Wi’ yer thighs parted to me, white as snow on the glen.” He nipped the sensitive spot between neck and shoulder, sucking in a little, making a tiny mark where he knew it wouldn’t show the next day.  

 

He pushed back, crouching between her legs. He waited until she grew restless and looked over at him once more.

 

“Eyes forward!” He barked, spanking her to emphasize the point, face turned hard as stone. Geneva instantly obeyed and he used his hands to open her just a little more. She hissed in surprise. He brought his thumbs up to her core and stroked her gently as a breeze.

 

“Oh!” She exclaimed.

 

“So soft, wee cheetie.” Jamie was transfixed by the sight. He firmly wedged her clit between his thumbs, not touching directly but working his way back and forth, arosuing and teasing together.

 

“That feels so good.” She told him.

 

“Aye.” He agreed, not changing tempo, to her consternation. Her legs started squirming. He ducked his head down and blew gently. She was panting and trying for some friction.

 

Jamie knelt closer and grabbed both cheeks, pulling them wide. She gave a startled sort of cry but keep her face forward. He looked his fill, allowing her anticipation to build then started moving his fingers the full length of her crease, lower and back up again, stoking the fire.  She rocked and squirmed and moaned.

 

Without warning he brought his hand down hard against her bum.  A nicely satisfying thwack. She cried out and then finished on a moan. He did it one more time and when he ran his fingers along her slit, they slipped in quite unintentionally. He groaned.

 

“Honey or vinegar, puss?” He asked.  Her face flushed bright red and Jamie could feel a similar blush creek up his chest and neck.

 

“Please….” Geneva licked her lips, guessing what he was about to do.

 

Geneva cast her glance over her shoulder. Her eyes meeting his, she looked dazed and flushed, no sound came from her. Jamie kept his eyes on hers as his fingers slipped in once more. She moaned and her eyelashes fluttered shut then opened again slowly. He lowered his mouth, watching, always watching those eyes of hers, piercing as his own. His tongue snaked out and her thighs shifted unconsciously.  She may have squeaked but the the rushing of his blood in his ears made it impossible to hear. She smelled like leather and tasted like twilight.

 

“Oh God!” She cried. “Oh My God!  


_Christ!_ Jamie’s eyes closed and pushed his mouth against her, wriggling his tongue higher, trying to settle in. He couldn’t get close enough. _More_ he _needed...had to...._ She was flexing her hips, trying for a better fit, too. Jamie wasted no time flipping her down on top of his  extra saddle blanket.

 

“I need...I want---” But it was clear she had no words.  She looked at him, helpless.

 

Her arms clutched his, her grip solid and her pull inexorable. Jamie lay against her.  Her glazed expression he was sure matched his own. His hand remembered exactly what to do and was drawn back between her legs like a magnet. Sure, deft fingers worked her folds, her hands gripped the smooth wool of his vest.  She was sighing and whimpering. Making soft noises of desire and Jamie was _undone_ by the sharp sting of tears in his eyes at the joy of listening to a woman uttering sounds of pleasure.  

 

With an impatient grunt, Jamie dove down.  He pushed against her bent thighs carving out a place for himself between, his fingers burrowing in deep. He fitted his mouth over her center and took the plunge.  She was twisting now, and he was drunk on her. Senses overloaded, he had to close his eyes so he could concentrate on learning her body’s response. She liked his tongue directly on her button, groaned loudly when he swirled it clockwise. Grunted with every pulsing flick of a finger.  Jamie could feel himself harden as she grew more and more responsive.

 

Geneva’s inner core was a bit shallower, closer in.  He moved the hand holding her hips to splay over her tight stomach and walked his fingers south to her pelvic bone. Jamie pressed down from the outside and up from within.   She snapped upwards, close to sitting and her mouth fell open, a silent “oh” and the astonishment on her face made his heart stop. He stilled his hands and he heard the flood of air into her lungs.

 

“Don’t stop! Don’t… what--- Oh God!”  Her hands flew toward him.

 

“Good?” He asked, thrusting his fingers once more then stopping.

 

“Oh, P--please please please.”  Her palms landed, one against each of his ears-- and struggled for purchase, finally gripping his hair. She looked at his face, looking for that same thread of connection through his eyes.  It was almost too intimate but Jamie couldn’t look away. Together, it said, we will explore this unmarked territory. He curled his fingers inside and, with his other hand, pressed in right over her mons. He experimented, canted back and forth then in time together slow and steady and first and then faster and faster as she began to shiver and shake. They were both running uphill, sweating even in the cool air, having trouble drawing in air,  but determined to reach the top of wherever this path led.

 

“Mac!” Was all Geneva managed to get out before her body convulsed.

 

He could not slow the racing of his heart, witnessing the beautiful agony of her release.  She moved her arms up and in, pulling him until his forehead rested against hers. She was breathing loudly, her hair sticking to the side of her face, red cheeked and freckles and with a smile like a satisfied cat on her lips.

 

“That was….” She began quietly.

 

“It was.” His whispered agreement. “You’ve never…?”

 

“That? No...no.” Geneva was shaking her head. “I didn’t know a woman could...Does it happen every time?”

 

“Not like that.” Jamie said emphatically.

 

“Not even when the man is a very good lover?” She wondered.

 

Jamie smiled, acknowledging the implied compliment.  

 

“But what about...you?” She asked, shy.  

 

“Does it matter?” Jamie’s tone was only curious, not cutting.  

 

Geneva looked at him for a moment. “Yes.” She decided. “It matters.”

 

Jamie brought his slickened fingers up to trace her lips, her tongue instinctively cleaning herself in his wake. Jamie cupped her cheek and pulled her lips to his and they kissed passionately, unable to stop and needing to let their mouths silently tell their story to one another.

_Oh, thank you...for ----_

_Nay, lass, thank you, for trusting me_

_I feel like the most beautiful woman in the----_

_You are...I’ve never seen anyone look so---_

_Did you like it, too?_

_Aye, to see ye so and watch ye tremble…._

_Deeper, kiss me again like that_

_God, you make me feel ten feet tall ----_

_I love it when your tongue flicks mine._

_I’ll kiss you senseless just to hear ye moan like that again._

_Is it wrong, how your kisses make me want more?_

_Christ no, dinna stop your lips and move your arse-- hisshhhht!_

_I have to feel ...OH MY... you’re so -----_

_Hard, lass you can be vera firm_

_Like that?_

_Follow as my hand covers yours...I’ll show -- Iffrin!_

_Please I need to feel you, to touch you... like you touched---_

_Buttons, my fingers need to work faster--_

_Why do men’s flies have so many tiny --Oh! Hot...hard as a stone!_

_The wet there at the tip, you can--_

_Like that? Don’t stop kissing ---_

_A moment...all your fingers in my mouth---_

_Better?_

_Give me your lips again._

_I need more...skirts-- bunched get them-- off!_

_Over, yer head, that’s it-- oh your breasts my God!_

_Hands warm, so big they cover them...pinch me again!_

_Kiss me, kiss me or I shall die!_

_Off, pants..help me pull them down...More...more_

_Oh! Oh! Oh! Rub it like that_

_Wet, like honey….Christ! If ye dinna stop pressing it’ll slip right ----_

 

Geneva’s eyes grew huge as she sunk down his hard length. Jamie groaned in pleasure. Hot, pulsing, thurm of life and his arms held her tightly to him. He wanted to weep for the happiness of that joining. It wasn’t sad, or final or desperate. It was joy and renewal and welcome.

 

She was moaning with every bounce and Jamie watched her breasts bobbing up and down with every movement. Her nipples were so tiny, pointing upward begging for his tongue. He took one in his mouth.  She cried out in pleasure. He increased the suction, harder and harder she cradled his head to her demanding more. Jamie put his hands on her hips helping her ride him faster.

 

He was going to spill hard and fast and deep if this continued much longer so he lay her on her back and entered her in one swift sure thrust and held himself still, moaning at the sensation.  Her legs widened to give him room to move, and move he did. He angled his hips to hit her clit on the upward stroke and flexed hard before pulling back again, over and over he struck the spot and her legs twisted around him, heels banging on his backside to keep him flexing hard and fast.  

 

Her hands reached to pull him into her even more. Jamie needed to come so badly, his balls were tightening even as she threw her head back and cried out her release.  Geneva’s inner walls clenched so tightly he couldn’t move. Up and down his length she convulsed. It was an amazing sensation and everything rushed through him at once. With an inhuman cry and a superhuman effort he pulled out of her, resting his cock just below her belly button. His stomach muscles clenched and he was helpless as his climax moved through him with incredible force.  

 

He watched with a mix of fascination and horror as his come landed on her breasts, her neck, her stomach, dripping down her ribs. “ _Jesus, Mary and Bride,_ ” He thought, “ _I’ve just spilt all over Lady Lemon!_ ”

 

Her hand came into view and her fingers wrapped firmly around his still hard cock. He lost his breath once more as she milked him, spreading his seed with the tip of it across her belly, painting a picture then running her fingers through it. She brought one experimentally up to her mouth and sucked. Her huge, bright smile could have melted snow on a winter’s day.

 

“Thank you, Master MacKenzie.”

 


End file.
